Learning to love your natural hair
Many of us with curly hair experience periods of insecurity when we first decide to return to our natural textures. When I first thought about taking off my wigs for good, I was overwhelmed with panic at the mere thought of walking around with my natural hair out. Faced with the hard truth that I was unable to love myself without something ‘extra’ braided in or glued over my hair made me feel an immense sense of sadness and shame. I put pressure on myself for feeling this way, forgetting to consider the historical and societal factors that existed long before I was born that played a monumental role in where those feelings came from in the first place.
Everyone’s clicking on…
Eurocentric beauty standards have been lauded for centuries as the pinnacle of attractiveness. Straight, flowing hair has been seen as desirable, while kinky, coily hair is often, to this day, deemed to be the less glamorous, unattractive or unkempt alternative. This perception of what is and isn’t beautiful has been passed down through generations from the days of slavery and, unfortunately, has become ingrained as the standard in many cultures, heavily impacting how we, as people, perceive our natural hair.
These toxic beauty standards imposed on our communities have led to behaviours from those outside it that make us feel singled out and othered in environments where we should feel comfortable. From people touching our hair without permission to workplace policies promoting unwritten dress codes that indirectly target and attack our curly hairstyles as ‘unprofessional’, we’re constantly bombarded with messages that our natural state is inferior.
With relaxers, straightening treatments and wigs being frequently hailed as the answer to our so-called ‘wild’, ‘unmanageable’ curly dispositions – even from those within our own communities – it’s no wonder so many of us find it challenging to see the beauty of the Afros that grow from our scalps.
Our feelings of disconnection are complex, and the roots from which this disconnection grows can’t be ignored when trying to understand how to overcome these psychological hurdles. Whether you’re starting to or continuing to explore how to accept your hair in its most natural state, please always remember that this cross isn’t yours to bear alone and that you’re not alone in how you feel. Give yourself grace and patience as you work to undo this cultural conditioning. Although it may take some time to overcome, once you do, it will be one of the most freeing feelings you’ll ever experience.
Reaching breaking point
You’ve learned about my breaking point and the journey that led me to finally say ‘enough is enough‘ and start taking the necessary steps to learn how to get comfortable with my Afro. All of our stories are different, as are our limitations. The truth is, before I had reached my limit, it would have taken a lot for anybody to sway me in any direction other than the one I was following. Even on my worst days – battling tirelessly with my lace wig at the bus stop on a windy day or painfully peeling away scabs from a freshly applied relaxer, relieved that there were only two this time rather than four or five – until I hit my limit, nothing and no one would have been a powerful enough motivator to push me down the path of embracing my natural hair.
The problem with feeling unable to make positive steps towards healthy hair practices until we’re at our breaking point is that we don’t know what the state of our hair, scalp or mental well-being will be when that time comes. While seeking professional help at the right time can offer you solutions if the causes of your problems are removed, if prolonged neglect isn’t addressed quickly, the outcome can lead to permanent damage.
But let’s be real. No matter how worrying this might sound in theory, until you’ve experienced a harrowing hair care diagnosis in real life, all of the above might still feel like a fictional scare tactic.
WWD
So, let’s do this instead.
If you’re still unsure about starting your natural hair care journey and battle internally with whether the timing is right, think about your line in the sand – your absolute last straw. What kind of extensive trauma would have to occur for you to be driven to return to your natural Afro texture? Write it down, read it back to yourself, and then ask yourself why it is that you would ever want to put yourself through that horrific, psychologically disturbing or emotionally taxing experience.
For me, imagining a future where I had lived a life of self-doubt, constantly striving to meet Eurocentric beauty standards, was too much to bear. Picturing the emotional turmoil, anxiety, psychological scars and physical damage that could result from another ten or twenty years of forcing my Afro into high-manipulation styles and subjecting it to harmful treatments was too far outside my comfort zone. I realised I loved myself too much to let that happen.
Ask yourself, how much are you willing to allow yourself to endure before you make a change? Remember, your natural hair is a part of who you are. It’s a reflection of your heritage, your culture and your identity. By embracing your Afro, you’re not just accepting your appearance; you’re embracing yourself. By intervening sooner rather than later, you’re developing both a love for your hair, and also a real love for yourself.
Do you like your hair?
It’s not an easy question to answer, but it’s a pivotal one that needs you to be honest about how serious you are about this journey. When I started trying to wear my Afro, my answer to that question was no, I did not. At times, I’d have gone as far as to say I hated it, something people don’t like to admit that often. While this admission almost brought me to tears, I now realise how important this step was in helping me achieve healthy, natural hair. If we can’t ask ourselves the hard questions and answer them truthfully, it will be almost impossible to develop self-awareness about how deep our feelings about our Afros really go. Without this clarity, we won’t be able to craft solutions that will work.
It’s too much hard work
Have you ever felt that maintaining your natural hair was complicated or required too much time, money or energy? I had this same mindset for many years. It was only when I acknowledged my true feelings about my Afro that I understood why those statements were utter nonsense – and why I had been so comfortable repeating them to myself with my full chest for over a decade.
I cast my mind back to my very first lace wig purchase. I basically waited at my door every single day for the courier to deliver it directly into my hands. I was so excited. When it was delivered, I had twenty YouTube videos bookmarked, ready to help me customise, install, style and maintain it. I cleared two whole days in my diary to make sure my education was undisturbed. Several nights, I stayed awake until past midnight, staring at my iPhone or laptop, spending hours learning everything there was to know about achieving the ultimate wig perfection.
No task felt too difficult, and no expense was spared. This was the attitude I honestly took towards every hairstyle I tried, except when it came to styling and caring for my Afro. To box braids, relaxers, curly perms and weaves, I gave my all. I pushed myself to overcome every hurdle at a pace to be able to master each style with patience and enthusiasm. Each time I made a mistake, I’d assess the reasons why, do more research, and come back with a new angle and the determination to try again until I got it right.
So why did I have the capacity to invest so heavily into those hairstyles, but when it came to my natural hair, it all seemed too much?
I realised it was because, with those styles, if I managed to grasp the techniques successfully, I was confident I would love how I’d look at the end of all my hard work. If I didn’t like the style I was trying to create or was unsure of how pretty I’d look wearing it, I wouldn’t have spent ten minutes on it, never mind what probably ended up being 10,000 hours, if not more. But when it came to my natural hair, I simply didn’t like it enough to make the effort. I had absolutely no confidence that I’d look beautiful wearing it, no matter how I styled it. So the thought of exerting even a fraction of the energy I spent perfecting all those other styles to care for my natural hair seemed almost comical to me.
Unless you genuinely like what you’re learning about, any time spent trying to get your head around it will feel like a bur- den that you’ll find any excuse in the world to avoid. Until I learned to love my natural texture and to see it as just as beautiful as the straighter, longer styles that had shaped my beauty standards for so long, every effort I made to care for my Afro felt like a complete waste of my time and money.
Learning to love your Afro will breed in you the kind of patience that’s needed to stay the course. So many of us try to make the journey back to our natural roots, but for whatever reason, we lose the motivation to keep going. A large part of this is down to having little to no love and appreciation for our Afros when we start that journey. If we don’t learn to like our hair, when we try to care for it we’ll be more inclined to experience feelings of frustration – and sometimes even contempt – over the smallest challenges, further reinforcing our belief that it’s just not good enough.
Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? It’s a term referring to a mindset where a belief or expectation comes true simply because one acts as if it were true. For example, if you believe that you’re going to have a bad day, you might sub- consciously act in ways that make that belief come true. You might be more irritable, less patient or less focused, which can lead to negative interactions and outcomes.
When you dislike your hair, it’s easy to make the excuse that it’s because it’s too difficult to handle, too much hard work, or not worth the effort. When you hold this belief, you don’t have the patience to learn what your Afro really needs or the motivation to care for it correctly. This lack of care results in your hair becoming damaged, dehydrated, broken – or in other words, difficult to manage. As a result of your hair care practices, your Afro naturally struggles to look how you want it to look, or style the way you want it to style, reinforcing the belief that you were right to avoid it all along. This cycle solidifies the negative narrative you hold about your natural hair and strengthens your bias- es – a self-fulfilling prophecy I was trapped in for countless years. To find enjoyment in your natural hair care journey, and to not be put off by setbacks or bumps in the road, you must acknowledge that you may not like your hair enough to even try.
Ask yourself, honestly, do I like my hair? If the answer is anything other than a confident yes, I absolutely love it – ask your- self what it is about your hair you don’t like. Continue probing like this, questioning why you feel the way you do, exploring where these feelings first came from, when they first started and who around you encouraged them. Working through these emotions can help you release them and begin a healthier relationship with your natural hair that’s rooted in appreciation, not frustration.Give yourself grace versus making excuses
I used to conjure up every excuse in the book for why my Afro never needed to see the light of day. Any reason I could find to build a solid case for why wearing my Afro was simply not a viable option, I’d cosign. The truth is, I was holding onto a huge amount of fear, using these excuses as a shield to protect myself and absolve myself of any guilt for hiding my Afro away.
I had built up so many false narratives and worst-case scenarios in my mind as to what would happen if I dared wear my Afro hair in its natural form that these excuses kept me trapped in a prison of my own making for almost a decade. Unfortunately, when I became painfully aware of the cycle of avoidance I was feeding into, I didn’t feel liberated or joyful. I merely created a whole new antagonistic internal dialogue with myself, rooted in shame and frustration, for my inability to move past these feelings. I became pessimistic, unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, weighing myself down with blame and breeding hostility towards myself for finding the journey so difficult.
We must learn how to find the subtle balance between giving ourselves grace and patience and being candid with what’s holding us back, so we can build the courage to face these fears and discomforts head on. It’s only when we accept the whys behind our behaviours and address the root causes of the excuses we’re making that we can allow ourselves to move forward and reach our full potential.
Registered clinical psychologist, podcaster and professor Dr Raquel Martin shed some much-needed light on how this issue is often one of the biggest psychological obstacles that gets in the way of people achieving their goals.
Dr Martin explained that grace is about recognising our humanity and imperfections. It’s the act of being kind to ourselves when we make mistakes and when we face challenges. Excus- es, on the other hand, often come from a place of avoidance or fear, preventing us from taking responsibility for our actions and holding us back from reaching our full potential. She high- lighted that when we make excuses, we might feel better temporarily, but it doesn’t lead to growth. Instead, it keeps us stuck. Dr Martin believes we should ask ourselves these questions to help us decide whether we’re giving ourselves grace or simply making excuses, with the caveat that we must answer honestly to benefit from the process:
1. Am I acknowledging my efforts and my progress?
2. Am I avoiding taking responsibility for my actions?
3. Is this self-compassion helping me grow or is it keeping me stuck?
4. Am I using this self-compassion to avoid fear or discomfort?
While taking a kind approach to your journey will help you foster a positive mindset, and develop the patience required to understand that hair growth takes time, being honest about your hair’s condition and goals and candidly acknowledging unhealthy hair practices is also crucial. You need clarity and balance between the two to properly manage any unrealistic expectations, avoid disappointment and make the necessary changes that will help your Afro to thrive.
Remember, the goal is progress, not perfection.
Nobody cares as much as you
It sounds harsh, but 90 per cent of the time, this is the truth. And the 10 per cent who do care are either projecting their insecurities onto you or inherently get their thrills from bringing others down. These people should be ignored at all costs, as hard as I know it can be.
Feeding into other people’s negative energy is the quickest way to spiral into insecurities you didn’t even know you had, stopping you in your tracks before you’ve had a chance to begin. The sad truth is we will never be accepted by everyone we meet, and the world may never truly accept the beauty in our natural aesthetic the way we would hope. We can’t let this stop us from being able to love ourselves. What people think about us is none of our business. Later, we will dive into how to manage this dynamic when it’s closer to home, in our family circles and love lives, for instance. For now, let’s look at that other 90 per cent.
It’s the thoughts and opinions of our colleagues, friends, and even strangers we pass on our daily travels that can often have the most impact. Because of our fears and insecurities, it’s easy to let our anxiety about wearing our natural hair create a cycle of negativity.
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Disclaimer:
For Education and discussion purposes. Please note no copyright infringement is intended, was recorded on BlkCosmo’s own equipment, and we do not own nor claim to own any of the original recordings used in this video and intend to use this as ‘fair use’.
